Why is it whenever I try to find any info out about this game I find posts full of edgy “haha I killed that, are U mad?” assholes and borderline “race realists”?

Ffs I just wanted to find a post that would help me avoid killing Kobolds and the one posts I find asking the question is full of edgelords bragging about how they love to kill “vermin” races and gays.

This is what you get when you make a fantasy world were certain races are born evil, it attracts all the racist freaks that want to live out their genocide fantasies.

It’s killing my fun for this game.

  • Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    25 days ago

    yes, it’s fucked up. I was at a convention shortly after Gary gygax died and they held a hastily-assembled panel and someone pointed out that in fact it’s really messed up that someone at some point has to have said “let’s make a race of elves who are evil, they can have black skin”, like WHAT. The biologist in me wants to point out that most things that live underground are pale so they even had to defy reality to make them black.

    It’s one of the reasons I think it’s good that newer editions of d&d are moving away from calling them “races” in favour of “species”. Plenty of the d&d “races” are way more distinct than you’d expect human groups to be anyway.

    • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      25 days ago

      Gary Gygax was…um…more than a bit questionable himself.

      In an online forum post he commented that killing goblin babies is normal (if not inherently good) and compared it with…well…so apparently there was a military general responsible for the mass killing of indigenous people who said of the killing of children ‘nits make lice’, and Gary used this quote to explain why killing goblin babies was fine. He used an example of a person saying this about human beings for why he supported killing fictional infants. There are many awful excuses he could have used, but I genuinely don’t think he could have used a worse one than this.

      • Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        25 days ago

        Well, yeah. Gygax fucking sucked ass. I certainly wasn’t trying to say he was GOOD, he ok’d the dark elf bullshit.

    • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      25 days ago

      To be fair, he didn’t invent the concept, drow are based on the Norse Dökkálfar, including the “dwelling within the earth” and behaving opposite to the “”“good”“” elves who dwelled in Alfheimr in the heavens.

      Still, choosing to adapt it verbatim was all him, as well as all the additional traits like being pro slavery (which was not in the Norse dark elf lore) and infanticide.

  • Damarcusart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    25 days ago

    Steam forums are where the shitheads too racist and mask off for reddit congregate. Their entire personality is doing “edgy” things in games to make people mad, because they’re so pathetic and have so little agency in their lives that literally any attention is good attention to them.

  • Bruja [she/her, love/loves]@hexbear.net
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    25 days ago

    Yeah, was upset there’s only one small area of kobolds in the entire game, and other than the first one they all turn hostile. There are mods that add them as playable characters, though. Just reloaded and left them to party despite wanting to join. And skip entirely in honour mode and subsequent runs since there’s zero of value in there.

      • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        25 days ago

        You can toggle Non-Lethal strikes (only for melee) and just knock them out and take items.

        Although the ceremonial mace isn’t necessary, any mace is fine, Lathander is the god of (among other things) creativity and inspiration.

        “The Morninglord was symbolized by the rising sun, but rather than being the god of the sun itself, he was the god of dawn, which represented the potential of a new day.”

        • Damarcusart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          25 days ago

          You can toggle Non-Lethal strikes (only for melee) and just knock them out and take items.

          I wish it actually did something. I “non-lethally” defeated some NPCs and the game treated it as if I had straight up killed them, with dialogue from other characters reflecting that. I wish the game had more “hold on, let’s stop fighting” options, like tabletop DND can have.

          • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            25 days ago

            Some plot important characters do show up later if you do opt to go for non-lethal. Enemies you will not see again won’t. The arrogant white dude at the start of the game will, for example, show up later if you choose to knock him out vs outright kill him. The method for recruiting the evil origin companion involves non-lethal. Some of the allies you can choose to betray may show up in Act 3 depending on whether or not you choose to non-lethal vs kill.

            Also, certain items that you can only obtain from killing someone will not appear if you only knock them out. Also relevant, when the plot does actually require you to kill (as opposed to stop, subdue, etc) someone, knocking out doesn’t fulfill the criteria.

          • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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            25 days ago

            Pretty much yeah, no wonder he lost influence in newer lore for the overreaching nauseous trope of “good but evil” fundie smiting gods. I mean Lathander priests are also pretty eager to smite, but they at least investigate before.

            • KoboldKomrade [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              25 days ago

              (Gods,) D&D gods suck so much. I went in to BG3 knowing basically nothing about D&D lore, besides that it was generic fantasy. The first 2ish chapters were great because I didn’t know how much people were being honest or if they were lying about things.

              I assumed Shar was “true” evil, but also hoped Shadowheart was right in that she was a genuine source of comfort and hope for broken and hurting people. Just misunderstood by those outside her influence. Nope. Just evil-sadist.

              It sucks, because I feel like Larian was going for a more ambiguous or at least creative style, but ultimately had to bend to the canon of D&D because fans/wotc can’t accept anything that isn’t “true to canon”.

              Same goes for elder scrolls lore. They got some good ideas in there, but its all weighted down by the worst most overused tropes in fantasy. They ultimately retreat to it for the “main” story. And its only gotten worse over time. Morrowind has you recreating a prophecy, possibly illegitamately, to beat the big bad. Skyrim… has you pick between two fascists.

              • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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                24 days ago

                Compared to the old lore BG3 world is relativised shades of grey, hell they even did slightly less evil mindflayer and some conversations with githyanki are not made entirely of insults from their side and attack regardless of what you do.

                I assumed Shar was “true” evil, but also hoped Shadowheart was right in that she was a genuine source of comfort and hope for broken and hurting people. Just misunderstood by those outside her influence. Nope. Just evil-sadist.

                Agree, way too much like Vatican

                elder scrolls

                Pelinal. It always comes back to Pelinal.

      • Bruja [she/her, love/loves]@hexbear.net
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        25 days ago

        You don’t, you can use literally any mace for the puzzle. Same with the other weaps. Those are just nearby and convenient. I like to use the rusted ones because they’re worthless anyways. Let the li’l cuties keep their shiny.

  • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    25 days ago

    Being really into the concept of evil races in a fantasy setting, to the point of not even accepting criticisms of the concept, is an astonishingly reliable chud marker.

  • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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    25 days ago

    As usual, weird nerds didn’t even read the material and are just looking for an excuse to be racist.

  • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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    25 days ago

    This is something that bothers me a lot with Shounen anime. The evil guys are just goblins or orcs, and the humans see it right, just even, to genocide the everlasting fuck out of these creatures without any remorse.

    Goblin Slayer is surprisingly the least guilty of this, in the sense that it sees its inhuman enemy as a cunning equal… whilst having no qualms massacring scores of them, children and all. Same with Frieren to some degree.

    Shinsekai Yori (From the New World) is the only anime I know that gets this completely right.

    • Moss [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      25 days ago

      Dungeon Meshi represents orcs very well, they’re a society based on raiding and seen as savages, because they were banned from owning land on the surface and forced into dungeons. They turn out to be very reasonable people and are honestly more civilised than Laios, the main character.

        • KobaCumTribute [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          25 days ago

          At least until Thistle shown and entire thing turned into classical lib shit.

          It really did just retroactively ruin everything when (spoilers all)

          it revealed that all the neat dungeon ecology and magical worldbuilding was fake and just a manifestation of ontologically evil wish magic, and the most dangerous desires weren’t self-serving greed or cruelty but instead a desire to help others and improve things.

          • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            25 days ago
            spoiler

            the most dangerous desires weren’t self-serving greed or cruelty but instead a desire to help others and improve things

            To be fair, this is how most manga/anime plots end up lol

    • CrawlMarks [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      25 days ago

      The author didn’t get the point across well but in universe all the races of light see goblin slayer as a crazy rascist monster as well. The crux of the story is class conflict and him being the only one willing to protect the poor at the cost of his own sanity. Which like all anime has fash vibes but those are at least diffrent fash vibes.

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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        25 days ago

        Yeah I think I saw hints of that towards the beginning, but then he started to get admiration from the status quo, and I couldnt figure him out after that.

    • vegeta1 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      25 days ago

      Idk. Goblin slayer is one of the most heinous with it. The goblins only procreate byremoved humans. The very first episode they show aremoved scene. They always bring a cute looking girl for this exact purpose. Their only motivation isremoved, pillage, burn. Even the apostles in berserk have some character like the Count saving his daughter and sending himself to hell to do that. Goblin slayer? Shit they went out of their way to show what happens when you spare a goblin. They showed that child killing the person that spared him and it growing into a goblin king, hitler-detector Its every fascists wet dream. It gets so bad it has to be satire of some sort not to side eye this show